page_title: Assassination of Olof Palme
section_title: PKK
hierarchical_section_title: Assassination of Olof Palme / Murder theories / PKK
caption_attribution_description: English: Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the PKK.
context_page_description: On Friday, 28 February 1986, at 23:21 CET, Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, was fatally wounded by a single gunshot while walking home from a cinema with his wife Lisbeth Palme on the central Stockholm street Sveavägen. Lisbeth Palme was slightly wounded by a second shot. The couple did not have bodyguards with them.
  Christer Pettersson, who had previously been convicted of manslaughter, was convicted of the murder in 1988 after having been identified as the killer by Mrs Palme. However, on appeal to Svea Court of Appeal, he was acquitted. A petition for a new trial, filed by the prosecutor, was denied by the Supreme Court of Sweden. Pettersson died on 29 September 2004, legally declared not guilty of the Palme assassination.
  On 10 June 2020, chief prosecutor Krister Petersson, in charge of the investigation, announced his conclusion that Stig Engström, also known as the "Skandia Man", was the most likely suspect. However, as Engström died on 26 June 2000, and no further investigative or judicial measures were possible, the investigation was officially closed.
  Various different theories about the murder have also been proposed.
context_section_description: In 1971, Olof Palme said that he blamed the fear of the masses on "anarchists and people with long hair [and] people with beards." Following up on this suggestion, Hans Holmér, the Stockholm police commissioner, worked with an intelligence lead passed to him (supposedly by Bertil Wedin) and arrested a number of Kurds living in Sweden. The PKK was allegedly responsible for the murder. The lead proved inconclusive however and ultimately led to Holmér's removal from the Palme murder investigation.
  Fifteen years later, in April 2001, a team of Swedish police officers went to interview PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in Turkish prison about state allegations that a dissident Kurdish group, led by Öcalan's ex-wife, murdered Palme. The police team's visit proved futile.
  In 2007, renewed allegations of PKK complicity in Palme's assassination surfaced in Turkish media during the Ergenekon investigation, which was ongoing as of October 2008.
  The Turkish newspapers have several times claimed that the PKK has admitted the murder but the PKK have always denied all claims. In 1998, the PKK said that there is a strong indication that the Turkish side is trying to discredit the PKK using Olof Palme's murder. Also many Kurdish organizations believe that the initial claims were propaganda of the Turkish government.
caption: Abdullah Öcalan, leader of PKK, was accused of involvement in Olof Palme's assassination.
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